It was the sort of modest home in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, where entire families feed themselves on the equivalent of 50p a day and the word "decor" simply does not figure in anyone's vocabulary. Craig Bellamy sat inside, trying to persuade a mother and father that joining his new football academy would be the right thing for their son, Dennis, when, unannounced, 70-year-old grandma burst through the door and began wagging a finger at the Manchester City striker.

"It's books Dennis needs, not footballs," she shouted. Boys in their early teens, she told Bellamy, should be studying, not playing. For once in his life the man Sir Bobby Robson dubbed "the gobbiest footballer I've ever met" was stunned into silence.

"It's my favourite Craig moment," explains Tom Vernon, the director of the Craig Bellamy Foundation in Sierra Leone. "She almost broke the door down in her determination to put him in his place, but he just took it before explaining that the foundation is not just about football and that academic and community work are very important to us. In the end, she was won over."

Many people know that Bellamy has had a series of run-ins with players, managers and fans; that he threw a chair at a coach and went at John Arne Riise with a golf club; and that he has had his moments in nightclubs. He has, not surprisingly, been described in print as "a truculent oaf", a view clearly held by many vociferous supporters when Bellamy is playing against their team.

Few know, though, that Bellamy has put hundreds of thousands of pounds into his West African academy, has spent two weeks in Sierra Leone during the past three summers and is well versed in the continent's history and politics.

There has always been far more to this Welsh firebrand, who physically and verbally confronted a Manchester United supporter on the pitch at the end of last Sunday's Old Trafford derby, than his 'Mr Angry' caricature suggests. His apparent compulsion to venture where others fear to tread is not always misplaced.

"Even Craig was daunted by the scale of the project he was taking on," explains Vernon who, as the founder of the highly successful Right to Dream academy in Ghana, was approached by Bellamy two years ago to help fulfil his vision.

"Sierra Leone is probably the most beautiful country in Africa, but it really is bottom-tier third world, there was no basic structure for his foundation and a lot of people thought Craig was crazy. He could have got involved with something a lot easier but, fortunately, he stuck with it."

Two years ago Bellamy ignored the warnings of his then employers at Liverpool and travelled to Freetown on a friend's recommendation. This year 1,600 boys aged between 11 and 14 play or train on a daily basis in a league supported by Bellamy's foundation. Unlike some African equivalents, this project, also supported by Unicef, is not primarily about producing footballers for European clubs. It aims, instead, to ensure that children brought up in the aftermath of a savage civil war, in a country boasting the world's highest youth mortality rate, receive a proper education, become involved in their communities and absorb the foundation's insistent messages on sexual health and the perils of HIV/Aids. Since the league's inception, truancy rates have plummeted. While boys – some of whose elder brothers served as child soldiers – are barred from matches if they skip school, they are also not permitted on the pitch unless they have helped in community projects such as repairing wells and clearing vegetation likely to attract mosquitos. Leagues for girls and amputees are also being established.

So far, Bellamy has invested £450,000 of his own cash and pledged a further £800,000, making it clear he is in it "until I'm a very old man". The steelworker's son from a Cardiff council estate is transforming lives beyond measure.

As with so many chapters in Bellamy's life, this one opened on sheer impulse. Two friends working in the timber business found themselves deployed to Sierra Leone, a country that enchanted and shocked them in equal measure. They regaled the striker with their experiences and, curious to see for himself, he booked that unlikely holiday, played street football with any children he happened to bump into and fell in love with the place.

Not that this particular philanthropist is your typical romantic. "Craig is one of the most professional, most businesslike people I've ever met," explains Vernon.

Bellamy surely ranks among the least laidback players on the planet and his passionate commitment to anything he engages in – Vernon is astounded by his grasp of African affairs – explains why his career has been punctuated by so many spats, not just with opponents, but with fellow players and managers.

If altercations with Alan Shearer at Newcastle and Riise at Liverpool – the former over Shearer's refusal to take Bellamy's side against Graeme Souness and the latter when Riise found himself struck with a golf club after declining to sing in a karaoke contest – were regrettable, Mark Hughes has harnessed Bellamy's belligerence to beneficial effect at Eastlands.

Indeed some at City regard the recent improvement in Robinho's attitude and application as a direct result of some withering deconstructions from Bellamy, who harbours real ambitions of one day becoming a manager.

"Now Craig's reached 30, he's decided he wants to become a coach," explains Hughes's coaching lieutenant, Eddie Niedzwiecki. "He's thinking seriously about going into the management side when he finishes playing and wants to know every little detail about the way we structure and organise everything."

The idea of Bellers the boss may raise eyebrows, but he is no more fiercely intense than his fellow perfectionist Roy Keane and certainly possesses the necessary eye for detail.

"People make assumptions about Craig and, often, they're wrong," says Niedzwiecki, who, alongside Hughes, has developed Bellamy with Wales, Blackburn and now City. "He's matured a lot and he's a top, top professional who wants to be the best and demands the best from his coaches and team-mates. He's a winner who cares passionately."

Perhaps too passionately, might some say? "Don't get me wrong I know why people say he could start a row in an empty room. I've had my arguments with Craig and there are times when you have to pull him aside and have a word, but as long as you keep communicating with him properly and explain why you're doing things he's a joy to work with. He enjoys playing for Mark because everything is properly organised and structured. If those things aren't right he can become frustrated."

While Bellamy can undoubtedly be high maintenance – just ask the former Newcastle coach John Carver who once had a chair thrown at him by the striker during a row over airport car parking – he is also an exceptional attacking talent whose pace is complemented by high-calibre finishing ability, the knack of playing on the half-turn, instinctive positional sense and a capacity to operate in assorted positions.

Despite the multi-millions spent on new signings at Eastlands he remains one of City's best players. As Niedzwiecki emphasises, Bellamy is also surprisingly selfless. "There's no 'I' in football for Craig, it's about the team, not him."

Sir Bobby Robson always maintained Bellamy was technically superior to Michael Owen. Like Owen, Bellamy's career has been interrupted by a litany of serious injuries but, unlike the Manchester United striker, he neglects to carefully hone his image.

"If I ever wrote an autobiography – and I won't – it would be called Don't Google Me," he once joked.

Someone who knows him well says: "Craig doesn't do charm, he doesn't see the point of it, he just believes in being totally honest. He'll never say one thing and mean another."

Bellamy is intensely loyal to old friends from Cardiff. He once had one to stay long-term in Newcastle in an effort to help wean him off heroin and petty crime and knows that, but for football, he might never have escaped his old estate or its temptations.

He and his wife (then his girlfriend), Claire, became parents for the first time at just 17. "I was at Norwich and hadn't yet got a pro contract when we found out about the pregnancy," he said. "That was real pressure."

Now a father of three, he makes easy connections with children. A few years ago a friend nursing her seriously ill toddler in a Tyneside hospital was struck by his warmth and perceptiveness as they chatted during a Christmas tour of the wards by Newcastle players. While Laurent Robert pulled his cashmere scarf above his nose in an attempt to avoid germs and others simply did not know what to say, Bellamy's sincerity shone through.

David Bishop, the former Wales rugby player, is a long-standing friend from Cardiff and was best man at Bellamy's wedding. He has accompanied him on many a night out. "The thing about Craig and Claire is that they are so not a Premier League footballer and his wife," Bishop says. "They're very down to earth, kind, generous people who do a lot of charity work which just goes under the radar.

"Craig has spent a lot of evenings down at his local pub in Cardiff just talking to people. He's completely himself. OK, so he might get drunk, like all of us, once in a blue moon and do something reckless but he's matured a lot in recent years.

"He's a great person and a consummate professional who has fought back from a series of knee injuries which would have finished many other players' careers. A lot of people get Craig completely wrong."

Ernest Bai Koroma is apparently not one of them. The president of Sierra Leone is so impressed with Bellamy's work and the foundation's residential academy building under construction outside Freetown that he has ordered his ministers to "jump" to the Welshman's every command.

And with good reason. Alimamy Samura, a news vendor, emphasises the Foundation's impact on his football-mad son, Sulaiman. "The investment is a blessing for my family," he says. "My son has the chance to be well educated." Simeon Kanu, a young striker, concurs. "It was a great moment for me to be chosen to join the academy. I love reading books."